SBIR Phase I: Development of arrays to record dynamic interactions between single cells

这项小企业创新研究（SBIR）第一阶段项目的更广泛/商业影响是使生物医学领域的专家能够更好地理解如何在复杂免疫系统的背景下开发和实施新的治疗方法。这项技术可以使新疗法更快地转化为患者，成本更低，成功率更高。这些治疗方法，如抗体、细胞和基因疗法以及疫苗，在起作用时可以产生良好的效果，但现有的治疗方法并非对所有患者都有效。为了开发和提供下一代疗法来改善患者的生活，研究人员需要能够了解免疫细胞和其他细胞如何随着时间的推移移动、相互作用、杀伤和生存。该项目使研究人员、开发人员和制造专家能够更早、更全面地了解新疗法的功能性能，并且成本更低。这种单细胞分析在商业和非营利市场中是一个数十亿美元的市场。拟议的项目将开发并严格验证一种新型阵列消耗品，该阵列消耗品能够从早期进入实验室扩展到全球任何设施的动态单细胞分析。使用不可扩展的概念验证生产方法的下一代阵列的初始设计和测试活动已经证明了动态单细胞功能分析平台的价值。该项目将开发和评估生产阵列的两种选择，一种采用压纹技术，另一种采用三维印刷技术。该项目的成功完成将支持扩展唯一的平台，该平台可以随着时间的推移和高通量评估同一单个细胞的迁移、接触动力学、杀伤、存活、亚细胞活性和生物分子分泌，从而提高新疗法的开发和交付速度，成功率更高，成本更低。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader/commercial impact of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project is to enable experts in the biomedical field to improve understanding of how new therapeutic approaches are developed and perform in the context of a complex immune system. This technology could enable new therapies to translate to patients faster, at less expense, and with higher rates of success. These therapeutics, such as antibodies, cell and gene therapies, and vaccines, can deliver excellent results when they work, but available therapies do not work for all patients. To develop and deliver the next generation of therapies to improve the lives of patients, investigators need to be able to understand how immune cells and other cells move, interact, kill, and survive over time. This project allows researchers, developers, and manufacturing experts to understand the functional performance of new therapies earlier, more completely, and at lower expense. Such single-cell analysis is a multi-billion market among commercial and non-profit markets.The proposed project will develop and rigorously validate a novel array consumable that enables scaling dynamic, single-cell analysis from an early access laboratory to any facility worldwide. Initial design and testing activities for the next generation arrays using non-scalable proof of concept production methodologies have demonstrated the value of the dynamic single-cell functional analysis platform. This project will develop and evaluate two options for producing the arrays, one with an embossing technique and one with a three-dimensional printing technique. Successful completion of this project will support scaling the only platform that can evaluate migration, contact dynamics, killing, survival, subcellular activity, and biomolecule secretion for the same individual cell over time and in high throughput to improve development and delivery of novel therapies faster, with higher rates of success, and at lower expense.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.